The night Troy Davis died, I stood in front of the Louisiana Supreme Court building with 100 other people, including my 10-year-old son, praying that the higher court would do the right thing and grant him a stay of execution. As I left the vigil to attend a meeting with a group of formerly incarcerated persons, I remembered the first vigil I attended in New Orleans, in April of 1997, for the execution of John Ashley Brown. I rem

P.J. Hahn has rescued his share of oil-soaked pelicans. As coastal restoration director for Plaquemines Parish, he’s seen the worst of the Louisiana crude that belched uncontrollably from BP’s well a mile below the sea.

Tonight on my way home, I told my 13 year-old son that Troy Davis was put to death by the State of Georgia. He immediately broke into tears. I was taken aback by his reaction. We were just coming from his school football game where he had an awesome tackle and we should have been focusing and having a joyous discussion about that. But he asked me how my day went and when he was studying the constitution in school we had discussed Troy Davis and the right to a fair

Two years ago the Department of Justice released a damning report about the deplorable conditions behind the walls of our local jail, Orleans Parish Prison. In that time 13 people have died while in custody at OPP.

Last Friday in New Orleans’ French Quarter, chants of “Justice for Troy” and “Too much Doubt! Let him out!” interrupted the early-evening partiers and tourists.

A march, about 100 strong, wound its way through the Quarter, calling for justice for Troy Davis and the abolition of the death penalty. Davis is scheduled to be executed this Wednesday, September 21st, despite considerable doubt about his guilt.

Last month, Bridge the Gulf and Gulf Change partnered to create the first edition of X-Change, a Gulf Coast-based newsletter focused on environmental justice. X-Change features “good people doing good work”, including personal stories by Gulf Coast community members who are facing environmental justices issues, and updates on the work of local organizations working for sustainable, thriving communities.

Fresh oil seepages raise questions about further problems with BP's damaged oil well. By Dahr Jamail, Al Jazeera English. Fifteen months after BP's crippled Macondo Well in the Gulf of Mexico caused one of the worst environmental disasters in US history, oil and oil sheen covering several square kilometers of water are s

Community groups from all over Texas are gathering to unite in opposition over the planned Keystone XL pipeline Sunday, September 18, 2011. The Canadian project reportedly cost more to construct than the value of the expensive tar sands oil it will carry from Alberta, Canada to Port Arthur and Houston, Texas.

A few days ago, the Times-Picayune reported that 12,300 Louisiana fishing industry claimants have been paid a total of $357,000,000 for losses due to the BP Oil Drilling Disaster, averaging just over $29,000 per claimant.

When Tropical Storm Lee pummeled the Gulf coast with wind and rain last week, it left more than local floods and wind damage in its wake. Residents from Florida to Louisiana report the slow-moving gale blew in oily residues, thick tar mats and tar balls, confirming fears that the crude from BP’s historic blowout is far from gone.

I never was one to rock the boat. I'm a sailor, for goodness sakes. I would take off from the harbor at daybreak sometimes an' barely beat sundown coming in. I've sailed like that, since i was seven, for 50 years.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or a climatologist to realize this has been a killer weather year. Snowmaggedons in the east; deadly super cell tornados pummeling towns across the Midwest and South; record spring floods throughout the Midwest and Gulf; droughts and deadly fires racing through tinder-dry towns in Texas. Now we're on track to have a possible record-breaking number of hurricanes; three cyclones now spinning in the Atlantic and Gulf could threaten our rain-soaked coasts and waterways.

In the Gulf, another maelstrom has hit. But the tropical storm Mother Nature has brewed is not the top concern on some resident’s minds. They're more worried about the threat of fresh oil sighted near BP’s Macondo well 40 miles offshore.

Down in the Gulf, oil still is bubbling to the surface near BP’s disastrous Macondo well. Local fishermen know it, environmental watchdogs know it, local journalists know it. Now, five weeks after it was first spotted, the government knows it too. Following repeated BP denials that its well is leaking, the feds have finally taken action. They’ve ordered Transocean to investigate the mile of Deepwater Horizon riser pipeline that lies crinkled on the ocean bottom, blown to pieces by last year’s catastrophic well explosion.